Ruling puts Powell closer to Fukuoka

by Jim Allen (Feb 28, 2008)

Jeremy Powell's winter of discontent is nearly over. Thanks to a
ruling on Wednesday by acting commissioner Yasuchika Negoro, Powell
will likely be a member of the Fukuoka SoftBank Hawks within a week.

For nearly a month, both the Hawks and Orix Buffaloes have claimed
the pitcher, but Negoro voided both teams' existing contracts and told
them to try again.

Negoro said only one contract can be recognized, and since Buffaloes
execs have spent three weeks vilifying the pitcher, there seems no
chance Powell will complete the paperwork Orix needs.

"As long as [general manager Katsuhiro] Nakamura, [international
director Takashi] Miyata, [team representative Toshio] Hatatani or any
of those other clowns are in that front office...or any other part of
any team, I will never play for them," Powell wrote in an e-mail to The
Daily Yomiuri on Monday.

Hatatani was surprised by the decision that will leave his club empty-handed.

"It was unexpected. I am extremely surprised," he said. "I can't say
I understood it at first, but it doesn't help to prolong it. It's not
what we hoped for, but I suppose there is nothing we can do but accept
it."

It also appears there will be no suspension for Powell. After PL
president Tadao Koike ruled both teams had valid contracts, he offered
a Feb. 4 compromise that Powell play for SoftBank but be excluded from
the first half of the season.

Koike said that proposal was now history and a suspension was not
being discussed. Afterward, league secretary general Shigeru Murata
made it clearer.

"It won't happen," Murata said. "There won't be a suspension."

Both Orix and SoftBank had rejected the president's proposal over
the suspension. Orix demanded a year and the Hawks wanted less. Orix
took its case to the commissioner on Feb. 14. Negoro said Wednesday
that baseball didn't need "this kind of tedious news."

He also sympathized with Koike's plight.

"I know the president wanted to solve this as quickly as possible," Negoro said. "He took a big swing at it but missed."

Koike echoed that sentiment, saying he tried to keep the issue within the league and reach a compromise.

"It's regrettable that it didn't work but when two sides refuse to
back down, then you need a unilateral decision," Koike said. "In this
case, the acting commissioner provided that."

The Hawks wasted little time on Monday, securing Powell's rights to a new deal.

"We had already completed the paperwork necessary for a foreign
player on Jan. 14," said Hawks executive Takanori Takeuchi. "Now we
will reconfirm his intent to join our team and send him the necessary
documents."

SoftBank manager Sadaharu Oh was pleased with the outcome but disappointed it took so long.

"This went the long way around, but it worked out well for us in the
end," Oh said. "It became complicated when one contract is a fax or
whatever and the two are treated the same."

Negoro said work was needed to prevent similar trouble in the future.

"When dealing with players, particularly foreign players, we need to have stricter procedures," he said.

Powell had abandoned negotiations with Orix in the middle of
January, saying he gave up after the team tried to renegotiate the
details of his deal at the last minute, following an MRI conducted on
Jan. 16.

The Buffaloes denied wanting to alter portions of their agreement
and pointed to a faxed letter from Powell saying how eager he was to
join Orix and a partial uniform player contract for 630,000 dollars
with Powell's signature that was received by them on Jan. 22.

In contrast, the Hawks' deal was in Murata's words "100 percent complete and in order."

"This time we'll accept no faxes," Murata said. "They can mail them to us, but we want the originals."